Two sides of a duit, a coin minted in 1735 by the VOC.
Continuity
Agriculture Plots in Indonesia
During the pre-colonial period, the kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago had already had a strong and dynamic class of entrepreneurs (traders and peasants).
Before colonization, the natives had engaged in trade with other Asian nationalities (particularly Chinese) with the agricultural produce in the Dutch East Indies archipelago. The Indonesians still engage in this trade up till now. (1900s)
During the pre-colonial period and up till today, agricultural exports are cultivated in either agricultural estates or by indigenous smallholders.
Change
Dutch East Indies’ economic system was changed from a small but self-sufficient one into the large export-oriented and capitalist economy.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Dutch overseas trade in the Far East, which focused on high-value goods, rested with the powerful Dutch East India Company ( [VOC]).
During the eighteenth century, coffee and sugar became the most important products (no longer agricultural products) and Java became the most important area. The VOC gradually took over power from the Javanese rulers and held a firm grip on the productive parts of Java. To implement its commercial monopoly, the VOC established company factories for the collection of produce, pressured individual rulers to do business solely with the company, controlled the sources of supply of particular products (clove production, for example, was limited to Ambon, nutmeg and mace to the Banda Islands)
In the nineteenth century, Cultivation System (1830-1870) was based on a state-governed system for the production of agricultural products such as sugar and coffee. In return for a fixed compensation (planting wage), the Javanese were forced to cultivate export crops. Supervisors, such as civil servants and Javanese district heads, were paid generous ‘cultivation percentages’ in order to stimulate production.
Coffee factory where berries were sorted, dried and roasted.
There was a change also in the kind of products exported by the 1870s. Exports such as coffee, sugar, tea, and tobacco continued to expand, but such industrial raw materials as rubber, copra, tin, and oil soon came to dominate the export economy.
Whole islands that had once formed an integral part of the traditional pattern of trade were suddenly removed from participation. Southeast Asia’s economic activity was linked to the European market economy in a way that had never existed before. Integration with the world market also led to internal economic integration when the road system, railroad system (in Java and Sumatra) and port system were improved. In shipping lines, an important contribution was made by the KPM (Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij, Royal Packet boat Company) that served economic integration as well as imperialist expansion. Subsidized shipping lines into remote corners of the vast archipelago carried off export goods (forest products), supplied import goods and transported civil servants and military.
